The HR Open Standards Consortium announces the candidate release of the 4.1 data exchange specifications. This release includes a JSON Benefits specification and JSON Compensation specification. Read more about these specifications in our press release here.

There is an ever increasing amount of data privacy and security legislation employers must comply with, including the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). To help organizations handling employee data comply with these increasingly complex Data Privacy regulations, HR Open Standards Consortium just released an HR-JSON Data Protection Standard that guides organizations managing the transfer of PII to third parties while meeting privacy requirements.

A Quick Look into the Past

Towards the end of the 19th century, electrical engineering became one of the core engines of the second industrial revolution. As Nicholas Carr put it, in "The Big Switch," manufacturing energy provided factories "with a decisive advantage over other manufacturers. The company was able to expand the yield and efficiency of its factory. [...] Like other factories of the time, they were as much in the business of manufacturing energy as manufacturing goods". This of course, quickly changed, as power plants started to rise and provide energy at a low-cost to everyone.

An aspect that is often overlooked in that story is that none of this could have happened without the emergence of standards.

While I was on the board of directors for an international standards consortium (HR Open Standards), the biggest battle has always been getting developers to use the standard. When we did, we got amazing things to happen, like getting 18 states to start providing compliance receipts for job deliveries in just a few months. Like enabling entire marketplaces.

Nearly everyone who I’m aware of who launched an HR Open initiative has finished quickly for a few reasons: